Maniac Review: an epic spirit trip that has nothing too much

It's been a long time since Charlie Kaufman He first opened his brain and let his strange / nostalgic visions spread on movie screens, which now allows us to see his influence. There were, of course, the first pale imitators, Lars and his real daughter faltered weakly and disappeared into a forgotten place. But now, almost 20 years later To be John Malkovich, There has been some absorption and some treatment of his work, a mixture of cold whim and deep and idiosyncratic pathos. And some worthy descendants are born of it.

Patrick Somerville new Netflix series, Maniacal, is one of these children. A melancholy adventure in mind, the series also owes a debt to Philip K. Dick, Terry Gilliam, and a myriad of other ephemeral manufacturers over 30 years old. But this rarely happens as a tired pastiche. With the precious help of the director Cary Joji Fukunaga, Somerville finds a rich emotional tone to underline and complete the zany science fiction and arch-conceptual.

At another time (or perhaps in the dimension) of New York City, two lonely people, both mentally and materially distraught, engage in a drug lawsuit that forces them to face tragedies and past crises. They are played by Emma Stone and Jonah Hill, the latest types of movie stars to emigrate on the small screen looking for interesting work. Their casting is a kind of nostalgic joke, as they were paired up in their mutual event film, The Silly Comedy of 2007. Super bad. Now bewitched by years and charged with accolades by adults, they use their innate chemistry for more serious purposes, with often moving results.

Most of these highlights come from Stone, who plays Annie, a mourning pill-dependent mess that gives her moments of liberation. Explaining exactly what the pill does to her would be a bit of a spoiler, but it is powerful enough that she will cruelly manipulate the drug trial that will provide her with more. Annie is an interesting shadow character; Somerville gives him a particular advantage, a detailed catalog of injuries and anger, which Stone discovers and explores with clever insight.

Given the episodic construction of show-in-a-show (or at least dream-in-a-show), Stone is also responsible for playing various characters, a nurse the Lord of the Rings-Some elf. She has play and elasticity at all levels, bringing a tangible reality to every skit trope, while keeping full control of Annie's larger bow. Stone makes a sacred journey through Maniacal10 episodes, reminding us both of the scope and sharpness of his skills.

Like Owen, a sad and lonely bag that has been (maybe falsely?) Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, Hill takes a familiar deafening ride to whoever has seen Adam Sandler in his worst roles. This approach works part of the time, especially when Hill has the vibrant energy of Stone that is reflected on him. But at other times, it feels like a little frustrating of non-action, suitable neither for ManiacalThe ancient humor and its surprisingly delicate sensations.

At first it seems that Maniacal is pointing in the direction of Owen, narrated primarily through his perspective – yet another story in which a woman is only the key to unlocking something in a man, or the talisman that eliminates his worst impulses . But as Maniacal unfolds, it becomes fairly fair, with two Owen and Annie working through their own private storms, fighting for a better place that could have gone through the Valley of Despair.

Maniacal is a show about how to deal with psychic pain in a broad sense, and yet I admire how much she stays true to Owen's and Annie's particular pathologies. It's a kind of disarming personal search, recognizing that our losses and individual fears may seem small at a distance, but within us they weigh with the weight of the epic. By entering into his particular sadness, Maniacal expresses an expansive empathy. It's a sad, haunted, but comforting sight.

Surrounding Owen and Annie are other test subjects and, of course, testers. Chef among the lab coat overall are Sonoya Mizuno like Dr. Fujita and Justin Theroux like James Mantleray, Fujita's former partner in love and work, who came back to solve a problem affecting the computer's experience. Here is where Maniacal finds much of his strongest comedy, but with real emotion hiding behind the crazy scholarly thing.

The goal of Mantleray is ultimately generous. He wants to heal people from their trauma, avoiding years of therapy, self-medication or worse. But of course, madness lies in the idea that healing could be so simple, so reducible to an entity that you can soothe, solidify and eliminate. Maniacal does not end on a note more promising than the tough beginnings of the series, but it is not naive about the persistent and chronic nature of mental disorders. His characters end with an understanding, not a cleansing.

I may be making it quite heavy. Maniacal it's also fun! Every trip that Owen and Annie take in their head is a little adventure – some more successful than others (a particular twist in the action comedy towards the end does not really work), but all are buzzing with ideas convincing. They are also well populated, with notable distinctions like Billy Magnussen as variations of Owen's skull brother and Sally Field as a pressing celebrity pop psychologist. Some may find the Somerville world's almost aggressive quirk a little exhausting, but I've never tired of its many nuances. Not even the retro-looking technology capable of futuristic things, a stylistic device we've seen for a long time Lost we first went down the hatch.

The show looks good too. Fukunaga cleverly balances the surreal with the tangible, fighting over a sort of controlled chaos of Somerville's eventful imagination. Given the material and the finesse of its design, Maniacal could have been incredibly fanciful, disgusting in his Wes Anderson-does-Coen ambassador of the brothers-make-Kubrick. But I think Fukunaga keeps things on the right side of modesty. I have a low tolerance for this kind of author singing, but Maniacal has never raised the alarm, testifying to its intelligent design and the humanity that its actors put forward. Or, I do not know; maybe it just works because of Dan Romer A clear, eloquent and evocative score. I am a sucker for any of those.

Maniacal already has his reasoned criticisms. But as a person confronted with his own mental anxieties and moments of mourning (I mean, we are not all?), The Somerville series, or at least half of Stone, has been very nourishing. This is a high-end style, a real emotional inspection of independent science fiction. I know the show seems a bit boring on paper, and that all of this had the potential to be. But in the heart of ManiacalHandled clutter is something real – messy and vital as a heart.